The present invention relates generally to telecommunications, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a character conversion system for electronic alphanumeric messages.
In the past alphanumeric paging was typically conducted on a local level wherein ratio transmissions of paging information had a limited range. However, current advances in long-distance telephone service and satellite communications now permit users to send alphanumeric messages world-wide from a variety of electronic source devices to a variety of electronic recipient devices. The devices may include electronic mail (xe2x80x9cemailxe2x80x9d), HTML forms on a website, mobile telephones, one and two-way pagers, fax machines and other electronic devices.
A relatively new problem has surfaced arising from incompatible character sets. It is desirable to many manufacturers of electronic devices to make them as small as possible. This is particularly true of alphanumeric pagers, cellular phones and other portable communication devices. As a result, manufacturers must limit the memory capacity of the devices for both size and product costs. Alphanumeric devices displaying words and numbers use a predefined matrix of characters called a character set. Different makes and models of electronic devices contain differing character sets. For example, pagers for use in an English speaking country will unlikely contain a character set for the Thai language and vice-versm. Therefore, even if the recipient user could have understood a message sent from an English-character set pager, her Thai-character set pager could not interpret the characters.
The problem also arises from the use of the Internet to send messages. An undeniable benefit of the World Wide Web is its standardized protocols (HTML and HTTP) which provide compatibility from a plurality of operating systems and browser software. Many paging services provide the capability to send an alphanumeric message using an HTML form. When characters are posted through the HTML form, they must be converted to hexadecimal form before being relayed to the wireless electronic device. However, without a novel translation process, the character sets of the operating system, web browser, language and recipient hardware may prove incompatible resulting in a message of gibberish. Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide alphanumeric character translation between electronic devices having differing characters sets and particularly for wireless alphanumeric messages sent through the Internet.
Previous attempts have been made to provide character translation such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,001 to DeLuca et at. (the ""001 patent) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,402 to DeLuca et al. (the ""402 patent); all of which are incorporated herein by reference. U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,001 to DeLuca et al. (the ""001 patent) describes a method and apparatus for presenting graphic messages in a receiver comprising a data communications receiver for receiving a message including at least one code, a database for storing codes and image data associated with the codes, and a presentation element for locating at least one code in the database. The presentation element then retrieves the image data associated with at least one code. The image data associated with at least one code is representative of at least one image. The data communications receiver also includes a display coupled to the presentation element for presenting at least one image as a graphic message. The perceived benefit of using the icon-based system is that a user who speaks a particular language is able to understand received messages transmitted in a different language. However, the icon-based system is inferior to a true language communication and is often unsuitable for many purposes.
U.S. Pat. No, 4,870,402 to DeLuca et al. (the ""402 patent) describes a multilingual paging system whereby a control character is sent in a radio frequency page transmission to indicate the information contains alphabetic or ideographic characters in an alternate language. Should an alternate language be identified, a predetermined number is added to the hexadecimal value of the initial character to shift to the alternate language character set. An optional alternate language comprised of additional characters is shown whereby the control character for the optional alternate language is an alternate key bit configuration. Therefore, to activate the receiver""s microprocessor to select the optional characters, the keyboard enters an alternate key followed by the key representing the optional character to be transmitted. However, the ""402 patent does not provide a system that maps equivalent characters, characters with similar appearances, or compound characters when the recipient alphanumeric device does not support the character set of the source device. In addition, the ""402 patent does not provide a character set translation for Internet-based communication that maps characters from differing operating systems and web browser software.
Consequently, there is a need in the art for an alphanumeric character translation system that determines if an alphanumeric character sent by the source is unavailable by the recipient device and intelligently maps the original source character with a character of similar meaning that is supported by the recipient device.
There is a further need in the art for an alphanumeric character translation system that determines if an alphanumeric character sent by the source is unavailable by the recipient device and intelligently maps the original source character with a character of similar appearance that is supported by the recipient device.
There is a further need in the art for an alphanumeric character translation system that determines if an alphanumeric character sent by the source is unavailable by the recipient device and intelligently maps the original source character with a plurality of characters supported by the recipient device which, taken together, provide a similar meaning or appearance.
There is a further need in the art for an alphanumeric character translation system for Internet-based messaging that identifies the source operating system, web browser software, language desired and recipient device to seamlessly transmit text messages from an HTML form to a wireless device
The present invention solves significant problems in the art by providing a multilingual wireless messaging system that seamlessly maps incompatible characters from a web browser form to characters supported by a recipient wireless device. The above and other objects of the invention are achieved in the embodiments described herein by novel use of a character decoding table comprising mapping information on various operating systems, web browser software, languages and wireless messaging devices.
Generally described, the present invention provides a method of decoding characters over a wireless network wherein a packet of information entered into a web browser comprising an alphanumeric message and a destination hardware specification is received by the system. The system then identifies the operating system used to transmit the alphanumeric message. In a preferred embodiment, the is system will detect a plurality of the most popular operating systems including Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 95, Apple Macintosh, unix, Linux, and any other supported operating systems. The system then identifies the web browser software used to transmit said alphanumeric message which may include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, or any other regularly used browsing software. The system then determines the source language of said alphanumeric message such as English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Japanese or the like. The system must also identify a recipient wireless device corresponding to the destintion hardware specification. This is preferably accomplished using an HTML form with the most popular makes and models of wireless cellular phones, pagers and other wireless devices that will accept alphanumeric messages.
The operating system, web browser software, source language and recipient wireless device information is then referenced against a character decoding table. The character decoding table comprises a large matrix of character conversion data for each operating system, web browsing software, language and recipient wireless device. Each character is mapped through the matrix to resolve an equivalent character supported by the recipient device. After the body of the message is mapped through the matrix, the mapped message is then transmitted to the recipient wireless device utilizing characters supported by the recipient wireless device. The entire process is seamless to the end user entering the message from the web browser.
Where the recipient wireless device does not support the original character entered into the web browser, a number of techniques are used to transmit a readable equivalent. Upon finding no exact character match in the character decoding table, the system substitutes a near-match character that is visually similar in appearance to the original character entered into the web browser. For example, a Latin capital letter xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d with a ring above (xe2x80x9cxc3x85xe2x80x9d) may not be supported by the recipient wireless device. In that case, the Latin character xe2x80x9cxc3x85xe2x80x9d would be mapped to a regular xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d supported by the wireless device.
In other cases, an equivalent character, even though visually distinct, may be substituted during the character mapping. For example, Thai characters used for numbers may not be suppotted by the recipient wireless device. It may be acceptable to utilize ASCII digits 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9 as substitute as they are generally well known, even to recipient users only versed in the Thai language.
There are also occasions wherein the recipient wireless device does not support a single character equivalent, but may communicate the equivalent through a plurality of support characters, or what is referred to as a compound character. For example, the Ĉ symbol may not be supported by the recipient wireless device. However, a lower-case letter xe2x80x9ccxe2x80x9d enclosed by parentheses (xe2x80x9c(c)xe2x80x9d) may be considered equivalent. These conversion rules are delineated in the character decoding table, and the process is seamless and unobtrusive to either the web browser user or the user of the recipient device.
Finally, there are times where absolutely no equivalent character mapping may be achieved. In a preferred embodiment, signals are transmitted to the sender of the message to indicate a compatibility error.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide seamless Internet-based wireless messaging without regard to operating systems, web browsing software, languages or wireless device hardware.
It is another object of the present invention to provide sophisticated character mapping where exact character equivalents are unsupported by the recipient wireless device hardware.
An advantage of the invention is that updates, changes, new hardware specifications and other data resides on the multilingual messaging server, providing a seamless resource of the wireless messaging system to the end user, without requiring downloads, updates, or patches on the user end.